Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/189/)
I was planning to ride off into the sunset today, but if I may appropriate an observation by Benjamin Franklin, it looks as though I might be heading in the direction of the rising sun.
In the week since I announced that Last Best News would cease publication today, I have heard so many expressions of interest in reviving it in some shape or form, with or without my continued involvement, that it appears likely that this independent online newspaper will live on.
Oasis Church, 2102 Old Hardin Road, Lockwood
Service: 10:30 a.m., Sunday, Nov. 9, 2014
Length of service: 1 hour, 5 minutes. Length of sermon: 33 minutes
I don’t know how people get to church in the summer, or during most of the fall, for that matter. I had not consciously decided to take a summer break, but if you live in Montana you know how painfully short that season is. Continue Reading →
I don’t mean to boast, but my people go way back.
One branch of the family, the one that takes the Bible literally, says we go back to Adam and Eve. Some of them even claim to have a sliver of the fig leaf once owned by Eve. I’m a little skeptical about that, but who knows? Continue Reading →
It’s an overcast Sunday afternoon, and I’m interviewing Marian Lyman Kirst in her kitchen while she makes thumbprint cookies. With a frustrated grunt, she starts scooping jam into the shortbread saucers lined out on the cookie tray between us.
“I really wanted to have these in the oven before you got here,” she sighs. Continue Reading →
Visitors to the opening day of the Yellowstone Valley Farmers’ Market in downtown Billings on Saturday will have a special treat.
On each corner under Skypoint at Broadway and Second Avenue North there stands an “Angel Horse of a Different Color.” The life-size fiberglass horses were painted by local artists and installed at the intersection earlier this week. Continue Reading →
The ’60s were a turbulent time. Millions of people had just gained real civil rights for the first time. Government distrust soared because of a failed war. Young people were exploring socialism, communes and free love. Alternative publications flourished. Nihilists were tearing away at norms of society.
I am, of course, referring to Russia in the 1860s. Continue Reading →
It’s been 259 days and the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services continues to drag its feet fulfilling a public records request the Montana Center for Investigative Reporting originally submitted last Oct. 29, asking for newborn screening records.
Getting answers to questions about Montana’s newborn screening program and its performance has been a daunting task. Why are the DPHHS and local hospitals so reluctant to release information? Continue Reading →
For a couple of hours last week, about three dozen people stood under ominous storm clouds, wandering across a windswept meadow near Meeteetse, Wyo., hoping to catch a glimpse of prairie dogs eating peanut butter.
It wasn’t just peanut butter the wild rodents were ingesting. In fact, the tasty treat was merely the irresistible flavor used in a bait laced with an oral vaccine being tested as a way to control plague among limited populations of wild animals. Continue Reading →
Jolene Burdge does not look at Dennis Hastert and see a man who used to hold one of the most powerful positions in the United States.
“This whole thing of him being the speaker of the House and the third in line to the presidency—I know it’s there, but it’s just not as prominent in my mind as being a teacher from a small town,” she said. “He’s just a teacher that all of us kids had that hurt my brother.” Continue Reading →
Victorious Word Church, 145 Alderson Ave.
Service: 10 a.m., Sunday, June 8, 2014
Length of service: 1 hour, 21 minutes. Length of sermon: 36 minutes
It’s a bit awkward when you’re “reviewing” a small church and the minister, recognizing you from your mug in the newspaper, greets you with a hearty welcome. Continue Reading →
A former Billings City Council candidate who has inserted himself oafishly into this year’s council race has, purely by accident, exposed a general misunderstanding of how that legislative body conducts its business.
Brian Kenat, a Tea Party Republican who unsuccessfully ran against Ward 3 Councilwoman Becky Bird in 2013, has been calling council candidates to sound them out on their beliefs—and to badger them if he didn’t like their views. Continue Reading →
